Tuesday, August 6, 2013

TwD: Eastern Mediterranean Pizzas

Today´s recipe for the Tuesdays with Dorie group is Eastern Mediterranean Pizzas by contributing bakers Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

This unusual pizza has a pita bread dough base and a topping that consists of shallots (I used red onions), garlic, ground lamb, plum tomatoes, salt and pepper and the warm spices cinnamon and allspice. The first task is the pita bread dough with dry active yeast, water, whole wheat flour, salt, olive oil and all-purpose flour. Pita bread is an oval-shaped Middle Eastern flat bread. It can be opened up to form a pocket which can be stuffed with a variety of fillings or it can be served alongside main dishes or cut into wedges and used to dip in mezze dishes such as babaganoush and hummus. But in this recipe it is used as the base for the pizza.

I tried two versions of the pita dough, I made the first batch with all wheat flour and the second batch with all whole wheat flour – since I bought quite a bit of flour at my local artisanal flour mill a few days, I was anxious to use some of it for these mini pizzas with the intriguing topping. We liked both versions and this recipe is certainly easy to work with and versatile enough that you can vary the flour that you use.

The topping for the mini pizzas was quite a success at our house – I added rather generous amounts of the ground lamb mixture on top of the pita rounds but considering that eight people were standing in line with their plates in hand after a long day at the swimming pool, I did not think twice and piled on the topping. We like lamb at our house and I did not hesitate to use it for the topping today. For serving, I added some baby spinach leaves to the plate and some marjoram flowers from the herb garden.

Since they were such an incredible success at our house and since I have tons of the wonderful flour left, I will certainly make this recipe again soon.

To see what the other members of the Tuesdays with Dorie group thought about this recipe, please click here.

For more information about the flours from the local flour mill called "Broicher Mühle", please visit the following website at http://www.muehle-bedorf.de

36 comments:

Andrea, thanks, I know you made the whole wheat pita - I did both versions, trying to put all that flour to good use but I went a bit overboard and made an all whole wheat pita bread dough - that did not look photogenic at all, I will have to do half/half next time - but the kids loved that "rustic taste". So, only pictures of the all wheat flour ones.

Jora, oh, I know that you would love the different flours from that mill (a rather recent discovery of mine)- I love to go visit the tiny flour shop but I love even more using that wonderful flour. We are quite fortutate to be able to buy flours locally.

Thank you very much, Amy - I must admit that I had a hard time settling on the right way to "present" these - they are not really that photogenic - but they were gone in a flash, I think I only got one bite from one of them and before I left the kitchen, there were none left. Good sign!

Your pizzas look fabulous. Love the presentation! So glad your milled flour was good. How cool to have a local mill.I can't wait to make these pitas again. It was such a simple and delicious recipe. I had the dough in the fridge for a few days and was able to make pitas every day. :)

Sandra, so glad that we all quite enjoyed baking that pita bread - this is a wonderful recipe and I am quite sure to be making that again very soon. I cannot believe they these mini Pizzas with ground lamb and warm spices received such raving reviews - but they did.

Ground lamb...homemade pitas...I would easily devour one of these pizzas. They look so good! I am so jealous of your local flour mill too! I would love to come visit both you and this mill! Thank you for sharing, sweet friend. Hugs and love!

Monet, you are so very kind my dear - next time your are planning a vacation, of course, you know that you will have to visit EU and if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, we shall visit the artisinal flour mill!!!

Plates = LOVE! And the mini tagines are gang toll! And, of course, the pizzas look fabulous! I love lamb and I think all these flavors meld so beautifully... I never saw lamb anywhere when I lived in Germany - is it eaten regularly there?

David, all I can say is "The Times They Are-A Changin´..." - no, not that many peolple eat lamb, let alone ground lamb around here but more than used to, that´s for sure. We do, for example, because I love cooking with it and because it has become increasingly available and because I seemed to be blessed with very open minded and adventurous taste testers at home - the family loves lamb (especially chops from the grill but they literally drooled over these...who would have thought?!). Thanks for the nice comment!

Colette, thanks so much - I get to be a bit creative when I set my table - just cannot help it and I think my family appreciates it too - who knows, they probably would not tell me even if they did not!

Andrea--your pizza looks perfectly delicious. We have been on vacation visiting the grand kids so I missed this one. Looks like I better make it soon. I have never cooked with lamb--I must broaden my horizons!HAVE A GREAT WEEK.

Cindy, at first I did not feel like making these - I thought the kids would never eat these but I should have known better since they all like lamb in general - in the end, they devoured these - kids, you never know! Hope you had a wonderful time with your grand-children!

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